


Wish Upon A Candle

by MissCoppelia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, The Last Jedi
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Depression, F/M, Ghosts, Kylo Ren is a haunted candle, Rey Needs A Hug, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Suicide Notes, University, Witches, ghost au, kylo ren is a soft boi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 09:25:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16720710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCoppelia/pseuds/MissCoppelia
Summary: Rey Jackson is sick of the world and ready to end her life until she meets a haunted candle and her world turns upside down.





	Wish Upon A Candle

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning for depression, thoughts of death, suicidal thoughts, a suicide attempt, things of that nature.
> 
> Thank you to the wonderful @roamingbadger for betaing this fic, and please check out her wonderful Reylo fic "Tie Your Heart to Mine".

Kylo felt like he had been asleep for eons, but suddenly, painfully, he was set alight. The world came into focus. Someone was holding him, taking him down a dark hallway lit only by candlelight, their grip around his neck. Why did he feel like he was on fire?

He wanted to blink it away, but found he couldn’t. He was completely paralyzed aside from his thoughts, his sight, and the burning sensation. He had no idea what had happened to him. He had no idea who he even was. And then he caught sight of a mirror as he passed it.

A girl held a candle as she walked down the hall. She looked sad, her eyes wet. Her stare was long, but determined.

Kylo was very certain that he was not the girl. She had not turned her head to look in the mirror.

-

Life was supposed to follow a certain pattern. You were born, then raised by a loving family and educated. From there you set out on your own, got a job, found love, friends, and created a family of your own so the cycle could repeat.

None of these things had ever happened to Rey.  
  
She was sure she once had a family that raised her. Whether it was lovingly or not, she’d never know, because they had abandoned her and never returned again. Foster care was like torture. Always passed around to some new guardian, never fitting in, and sometimes facing the worst abuse imaginable. In her short life, Rey knew she had faced far too many horrors. More than most people her age could comprehend. No one could relate, which was probably why she’d never had a close friend.  
  
She hadn’t been educated so much as put in school and forced to fend for herself in every regard. It was a miracle she’d even been able to enter into university at all. And now even that was falling down around her.  
  
It felt terribly unfair to have her scholarship pulled out from under her for one bad semester with a few failing grades. She had tried pleading with the scholarship board for leniency, had tried applying for aid elsewhere, and everything else she could think of, but no one would take pity on a poor orphan who wanted to better herself. One who had never even received a D grade before in her life. She could prove it. She had all the transcripts.

  
Without financial aid, there was no job she could possibly land that would pay her way through college. As it was, she was working two jobs just to afford the rent and meal plan for the mandatory on-campus housing. (It was cruel to do that to scholarship students, she had thought.)

The saddest part was Rey had thought that university was her ticket out of her unhappy childhood and towards a brighter future. A future more like the one other people had ahead of them. But as the semester wore on and Rey’s grades slipped further thanks to all the stress, she realized she had only one future: one of misery and struggle.  
  
She would be kicked out of school and out of her dorm. If she weren’t immediately rendered homeless, then she’d be forced to pay for the cheapest possible place she could find in the city. She’d have to work shitty food service or retail jobs until she could find someplace better to hire her, but it’d be difficult what with her lack of degree. And because of that, she could see no better path in her future. Just struggle upon struggle, left vulnerable and helpless by a flawed system. She was tired of it and had been for a long time.

Death would be far easier.

 

For some reason she had decided on the baseball stadium as the place to end it. One wall of the stands backed up against the river, and she could just jump and let her body wash away with the current. Her life would just fall away, and no one would have to worry about the mess. It all made sense. As if it were meant to be.

Rey didn’t pause as she broke into the stadium and walked up the long hallways to her final destination. Perhaps she should have. But her phone battery was dead and she had no reason to charge it again, so she’d brought a candle to light her way instead. Some old thing she’d found in a thrift store that she couldn’t tear her eyes off of. Normally she wouldn’t spend frivolously like that, but it had only been $1, and it was so pretty with its etched designs and gold embossing. And it was such a long, thick candle that she figured it would be good in an emergency. Now she almost wished she had that dollar back, but at least the candle was finally being used for something.

-

Kylo wondered what he was doing as a candle. He was sure he hadn’t been a candle before, though surety of his previous existence was too muddled to discern, as if something blocked him. There had been something, and it had little to do with candles. It did explain the burning sensation though. But candles weren’t normally sentient, he thought.

Then there was the girl. He found he could see her if he turned his focus towards her instead of the path ahead. She was clearly upset, but for what reason he didn’t know. He found her quite pretty, despite the grimace she wore. Had she been in a different mood, her eyes would be much sweeter, her face kinder and softer. He wished he could reach out to her and soothe away whatever problems were set before her.

All he could do now was light her way.

  
As they climbed, a memory returned to him. He had been human. There was a fight, and he had been quite injured. An evil man stood over his broken body, muttering ancient words and casting flashes of light toward him. Kylo remembered fading out of consciousness, then the words of an older woman, her words much kinder, bringing him back from the edge.

 _I’m sorry I couldn’t do more, Ben,_ she had said, but then he had slipped away again.

So he’d had two names. Why he had two names was a mystery. As was why he was a candle. Perhaps he had become a ghost and had decided he wanted to haunt something unusual.

  
His flame flickered and nearly went out, sending a searing pain across whatever conscious feeling Kylo had. The girl had climbed up to the top of the building and they were now outside, quite close to the edge. She set him down then hurriedly began scribbling something on a piece of paper.

Normally he felt like he wouldn’t have intruded on this private moment, but he wondered if candles such as himself could read.  
  
_“To Whomever Finds This Note,_

 _I am so sorry to leave anything behind for you to deal with. I tried very hard, but I’d rather just skip to the end now.”_  
  
The girl meant to kill herself. Instantly, Kylo knew he could not allow that to happen. If he did, it would mean the end of him, but more importantly the end of her. And she was important. He couldn’t discern why yet; his memories were still too muddled to bring clarity to the situation. But he had to act, even if he was only a candle.

-

At first Rey thought it was the wind that caused her candle to shake, but then it tipped over completely. The wind at the top of the stadium was NOT strong enough for that, and the flame hadn’t gone out. She yanked away her suicide note, not wanting her last message to the world to be obscured by wax, then watched as something began to appear in the wax itself.

_Please don’t do it. Let me help you._

Rey stifled her scream with her hand as she watched the wax ooze back into itself. Were her eyes tricking her? She stared at the wax a moment, but the message had disappeared.  
  
“I must be going crazy, and there’s no way in hell I can afford that,” she muttered to herself.

New letters appeared in the wax:

_Please don’t die. I want to help you, and I think I need your help._

The wax oozed back onto itself.

“What the actual fuck!”

 _I’m not sure either, I think I’m a ghost,_ the candle responded. _I only woke up when you lit me._

Rey stared. Her brain tried very hard to wrap itself around the existence of ghosts, haunted thrift store candles, and ghosts writing things in candle wax.

_Hi, I’m Kylo. Also I’m Ben. I’m not sure which one’s better right now, but both were my name._

_What kind of name is Kylo???_ Rey’s mind demanded, as if that was the most important question at the moment.  
  
“I’m Rey?” She was hallucinating. Yes, she must be. Maybe she’d tried to kill herself with pills before this, forgotten, then hiked it up the stadium only for the side effects to finally kick in. That was dumb. She’d read about how painful it was to die that way.

_That’s a pretty name. Can we go inside and talk more?_

“Uh, sure,” Rey responded before gathering her note, her pen, and the candle and heading back down the ladder. “This is really weird.”  
  
The candle flickered and Rey wondered if it was laughing. There wasn’t any wind to affect it, and she felt like she had barely breathed in the past five minutes.

  
Once they were back in one of the hallways, she set it down again and watched it tip itself over.  
  
_Painkillers must be a hell of a drug,_ she thought.

Letters appeared in the wax again. _If you don’t mind me asking, why do you want to kill yourself, Rey?_

The candle wax was so fucking polite…  
  
Rey sat down next to it. “Well, Kylo, Ben, Ghost, whatever you are… The world is irredeemably awful and my life has been ruined by cruel people. So I don’t really see any point in living anymore. Might as well just get it over with.”

_That sounds awful. What did those people do?_

Rey inhaled and felt her chest grow tight. She was tired of pleading her case, and she almost certainly didn’t want to justify this particular choice to anyone. Especially not a ghostly hallucination.

“I lost my scholarship, and now I can’t pay for school.” That was the short answer, but it was all she could get out for now.

_That sounds bad, but it doesn’t sound like a reason to die…_

She bit her lip. It wasn’t. Not that alone. “Once my scholarship money runs out, I’ll lose my dorm room and I won’t have any place to live.”

_Can any of your friends let you stay with them?_

“What friends?”

 _Surely you have some…_  
  
Rey shook her head. Her eyes started prickle with tears.

_I’ll be your friend. I know I can’t offer you a place to stay right now, but if it will help..._

The tears came like a flood and Rey didn’t want to stop them. “It won’t! I’ll still be broke. I’ll still have no family. And I’ll have no education, so I won’t be able to get a good job ever! And I’m tired of all of it! I’m tired of having to work so damn hard to get HALF of what everyone else gets handed to them for free. I don’t want to live like this anymore!”  
  
She paused to choke on a sob and drew a ragged breath. “I don’t want the rest of my life to be this awful, so I might as well skip to the end.”

 _I’m sorry,_ the wax wrote. _I wish I could help._

“It’s fine, it’s nothing you’ve done,” Rey replied. She wondered when the hallucination would end and she could get it over with.

-

Kylo remembered something. The woman was a powerful witch. She was his mother. He was also a witch. The evil man was a witch too, one whom Kylo had studied under. Something had gone wrong, and his teacher had cursed his soul. His mother had tried to reverse it, despite some old feud between them. The details were still fuzzy, but a few things were becoming clearer.

 _Rey, I think my mother might be able to help you,_ he wrote out.

She wiped away a stream of tears and leaned over to read his answer. There in the soft candlelight of the dark hallway, she looked so broken and frail that Kylo wished he had arms to hold her.  
  
“Your mother? Why would she help me?”

_She just would. It’s her life’s purpose to help others._

 

Another memory. His father dead. Kylo was shocked to realize it was by his own hand, even as the old emotions rushed through him.

_If nothing else, she’ll be able to give you someplace to stay until you can get back on your feet._

“Why would she do that?” Rey had stopped crying now. She looked ready to laugh, as if his suggestion was stupid.

_Because she doesn’t have any family left now that I’m gone._

“Oh...”

 _If you take my candle to her, she’d understand,_ he wrote. He had faith. His mother would recognize him, even in this form.

Rey stared at his words for awhile, and Kylo watched her try to decide. He didn’t know how much good it would do, but his mother was good at giving people hope. He remembered that much.  
  
“Are you sure?” She asked hesitantly. Kylo could see just how little trust she had left to give others.

_Yes, she’ll help us both._

-

Rey found herself walking down the hallways, candle in hand and the suicide note tucked in her pocket, just in case. They were headed back to her dorm room for now. Kylo was having trouble with his memories and couldn’t remember his mother’s name yet. Information was coming back to him in fits and spurts, he’d written in wax. The longer the candle burned, the more of himself had returned.

She wasn’t convinced any of it was real yet, but she was too tired to keep arguing with a candle. If she had taken those pills and was hallucinating all of this, she figured she’d die soon enough. If not, then she’d deal with her haunted thrift store candle problem in the morning.

  
The dorm room was empty, as was the rest of building. They were normally deserted and usually it made Rey lonely, but this time she was grateful. Lit candles were definitely contraband, even though Kylo’s didn’t seem to produce any smoke. She wondered if it would actually burn anything. The last thing she needed was to be sent packing earlier than expected.

She set Kylo’s candle down on her dresser and rummaged around for something that he could spill wax onto. A plastic dollar store plate would do the trick, even if it was covered in some cringey kids cartoon art.  
  
“Is this okay?” she asked, and the candle flickered. They had started to work out a bit of a communication system when there wasn’t wax around. Though really it wasn’t a system, he’d just let the flame flicker and Rey would figure it out.

She set the candle down on the plate and watched as the candle toppled itself and spilled its liquid.

 _Nice digs,_ the wax said.

Rey laughed awkwardly. “Yeah, right.”

_Nicer than mine. I don’t even get a cozy miniature room in here like a genie would._

She ran a finger over the candle and tried to memorize the pattern on the top edge that was beginning melt away. “It’s a pretty candle though.”

_Thanks?_

After flopping down on her bed, she crossed her arms on the dresser and rested her head there as she waited for Kylo’s next message. He had paused awhile, to do what she wasn’t sure.  
  
_How are you feeling?_

“Tired. I keep waiting for this dream to end.” Rey sighed. “It’s too weird to be real.”

Another pause. _What would you say if I told you magic was real?_

“You could tell me you’re the Queen of England right now, and I’d believe you,” Rey found herself laughing again. Her candle had a sense of humor.  
  
_I’m not the Queen of England, but I was a witch,_ Kylo spelled out in the wax. After a pause he continued. _So I guess magic exists._

“If you say so.” A yawn escaped her lips.

 _You should sleep,_ Kylo suggested.

Rey lifted her head. “What about you?”

 _If the candle goes out, I might lose all my memories again._ Another pause in the writing. _Maybe you should set me upright again. Just in case._

“But what if you’re not here when I wake up?”

_I’ll be here. You won’t be alone again, I promise._

Everything in life had taught her not to believe in promises. Promises were lies, broken all the time. And people were natural born liars. But despite all the times she had been spurned, she found herself wanting to believe in Kylo’s promise. He was a ghost, so perhaps he had nothing else to do for all eternity besides keep her company. So she slid into bed, pulled the covers around her, and slept.

Her empty dorm room felt so much warmer than usual.

-

Kylo spent the night remembering, and it wasn’t good. He had started with the knowledge that he’d killed his own father. That was definitely bad. His reasons for doing so were so incredibly stupid too. His teacher, whose name he knew now was Snoke, had commanded him to. He had said it was the only way to gain true power.  
  
Kylo had done it, even though he had never hated his father. And despite the horror of his act, his father forgave him as he did it. But it hadn’t brought any new power, just more pain. Snoke had lied. They had fought. That fight had led to Kylo’s death and somehow his residency in a candle.  
  
His mother… He hadn’t see her in so long. She had grown so much older, and Kylo wondered how much of that was his fault. Still she longed for her son. It must have been her words that bound his soul to a physical object. How his path crossed with Rey’s, he had no idea. Perhaps his mother was no longer alive. But hopefully he would still have Rey, and perhaps talking her down from that ledge was how he could repent for some of his misdeeds in life.

 

He gazed over her as she slept. The way her brown hair fell softly around her chin, the freckles dusting her shoulders and nose. Her heart was too large and caring for the world around her. She could only give so much for before it began to eat at her very soul. Clearly the world had taken far too much and not even known it..  
  
Her room reflected that imbalance. Whomever lived with her had decorated their side of the room with a strange sort of opulence. There were multiple pillows, soft-looking blankets, and clothing overflowing from their closet. They had redecorated the dresser with fabric and trim to make it look less like sad dorm furniture. It was all cozy looking. Rey’s side had nothing. Books, papers, an aging poster of a rock band, a few shirts hanging in her closet. Just the essentials and nothing more. It barely looked like she lived there while her roommate had filled every inch of space with excess.

Kylo knew Rey could feel that difference profoundly. If only he’d had a body that could hold her and comfort her through the pains. He’d rock her to sleep, brush away tears, and offer her anything else he was able to do.  She’d probably try to stop him, but he would persevere until she let him spoil her. He’d had money in life. He knew he could have supported her easily, let her finish her schooling and make her start in the world. If only he weren’t a ghost in a candle. But even then he could at least stay by her side and keep her company until she found his mother. He hoped his wick would last that long.

-

_Leia Organa is my mother’s name._

Rey stared worriedly at her candle. She had been surprised to wake up alive and with it still there. And while that fact filled her with relief, a part of her worried. Ghosts were real. Magic was real. Witches were real. It didn’t fit in with anything she had ever encountered before now.

Yet there her candle was, writing in wax again, telling her that the mayor of the sleepy college town where she lived was not only his mother, but a witch as well.

“Mayor Leia Organa? Are you _kidding_ me?”

 _No. She ran for mayor? How long ago?_ Kylo answered.

Rey ran a hand through her hair trying to remember. It had been awhile. Maybe more than 5 years? Definitely before Rey was old enough to legally vote. “I think she was mayor when I was in high school…”

_Huh. Guess I’ve been dead a long time then._

Rey stared at the candle, very troubled by how much the situation was beginning to remind her of _Hocus Pocus._

“How am I supposed to deliver a burning candle to the mayor?” Rey asked. “And on a weekend! Where do mayors even go on weekends?”

 _She probably still lives in our old house,_ Kylo wrote out in wax.

-

Kylo didn’t remember his old address, but once Rey stepped into the town center, he knew the way. He let his flame flicker and lean in the direction he remembered it being. Rey followed his directions, even though she spent most of the way glancing around nervously. She had demanded they wait until it was dark in case anyone wondered why a woman was wandering around with a lit candle. And she was quite upset about the possibility of being seen.

He wished he had the power to ease her fears, but flickers and writing in wax was all he was able to do at the moment. Well, and remember his life.  
  
He could remember sulking as he roamed these streets as a teenager, riding his bike down them as a boy, driving down them as a grown man. Always hurrying back home for whatever reason. He remembered music he had listened to, he remembered the chill of winter’s air on his face, and some of the dogs he used to pass by.  Suddenly he shifted his focus to a street sign. Falcon Way.

_Home..._

-

Rey honestly didn’t know where the hell she expected the mayor to live. Maybe in some special house that the city made available to them like the White House or something. She did not expect the slightly overgrown Victorian-style manse at 1000 Falcon Way with its crimson accents and soft gray walls. The garden, full of ivies and old trees and a few flowering bushes, was delicately lit, and as she stepped inside to reach the front door she thought she could almost feel the magic there.  
  
Maybe it was real. She had only spent most of the past 24 hours with a haunted candle, after all.

There were lights on inside, which set her stomach aflutter once again. Maybe magic was real, but maybe she would ring the doorbell, hold out a candle to some unsuspecting person, and ask them in all seriousness if this was their long-lost son. Maybe she was still under the influence of those painkillers she might have taken last night and the trip was lasting longer than she realized it would.

Kylo’s candled fluttered with excitement before her eyes. This was definitely it. And it was either this or facing the rest of her shitty life. She didn’t have much left to lose, she supposed. So she walked up the creaky porch and knocked on the door.

It took a minute before she heard someone behind the door shuffling towards it.  
  
“Who is it?” an older woman’s voice called, a little raspy from age, but still strong and sure.

“Ummmm... My name is Rey Jackson and I have your son. I think.” She held out the candle towards the peephole and Kylo’s flickering grew faster.  
  
There was nothing but silence from behind the door for a long moment, then suddenly the sound of latches and locks being undone fast. The door swung open and in it stood the small frame of Mayor Leia Organa in a overly large robe, wide-eyed and in the midst of a large, sharp breath.  
  
“You have Ben!?” The woman gasped.  
  
Rey nodded cautiously and held out Kylo’s candle further for her. She was almost scared the woman would snatch it from her hands, dash inside, and leave her standing alone on the porch. Instead, Mayor Organa stepped closer and peered at it carefully through her glasses while Kylo’s flame danced about. She let her fingers graze the candle carefully, as if afraid she might break it.  
  
“Is it really you, Ben?” The light flickered excitedly in response.  
  
Rey saw tears forming at the corner of her eyes, and felt a pang of emotion in response. She had recognized the candle, which meant it was all real somehow. Strange how reality was feeling more and more fantastical by the hour.

“Rey, was it? Please come inside. Tell me everything.”

 

Quickly, Leia had ushered her into the house and directed Rey to sit on the large sofa in the midst of a busy living room. The place was filled to the brim with books of all kinds. Books lined the walls, books sat upon stands with pages opened, books were piled up high on the coffee table before her. Leia cleared a space and gestured that Rey could put the candle down, but she hesitated. She didn’t want to let go of Kylo now. What if he never came back to her?

“How did you find him?” Leia asked excitedly as she looked Rey up and down.

Rey bit her lip nervously. If witches were real, then nothing about this would sound crazy to the other woman. It was just that it still sounded crazy to Rey and made her feel overwhelmed. If magic was real, if Kylo was real, what else was real? What else did she not know?  
  
“The candle was in a thrift store. I didn’t know it belonged to you or that Kylo was inside, I just thought it was pretty.” Her grip tightened around Kylo, the etchings digging into her skin, the warmth of the candle’s flame heating up her skin. “I had it for years before I even lit the candle last night. I hope I didn’t do anything wrong.”  
  
Leia paused, eyes wide and a bemused look on her face. “My dear, the spell was supposed to work that way. You did nothing wrong.”  
  
“It...It was?”

“Yes, I bound Kylo to the candle to save his life, but the cost of that spell was that he could only be found and set free by his soulmate,” Leia’s face stretched into a wide smile. “That must be you.”

 _His soulmate?_ “M-me?”  
  
“Yes, that’s right,” Leia chirped, then added, “Oh, but it doesn’t have to be romantic. It can be like any other kind of close relationship. Like family. So welcome to the family!”

Rey looked down at the candle. It flickered a bit, and she knew that if Kylo had a mouth he’d be smiling. Soulmates. Family. Magic and ghosts. It was too much. The real world didn’t work this way. Rey wanted to go back to the world she knew. At least there, everything was clear to her, even if it hurt her.  
  
She set down Kylo on the coffee table and stood. “I’m glad I could return him to you, Mayor Organa, but I don’t think I can stay.”  
  
Leia looked crestfallen, which sent a pang of guilt through Rey’s core. “What do you mean?”

“All I did was buy a candle and light it.” Rey shook her head, more for her own sake that anyone else’s. She needed to clear her mind. Find her focus again and not be swept up in whatever madness she had fallen into.  “I’m not anyone’s soulmate or anyone’s family.”

 

She had begun to walk to the door when she a familiar thump.  
  
“He says he doesn’t want you to go,” Leia called out. “And I do need you in order to set him free from the candle. If you wouldn’t mind staying just for that?”

Rey turned back to look at her and Leia continued. “I can make it quick. Just give me maybe five minutes. Ten at most.”

“...Okay.”

 

She watched as Leia hurriedly gathered books and placed them by the coffee table, their pages open to display drawings Rey did not comprehend. Then the woman began drawing circles in chalk along the floor, muttering to herself when she had to erase something and redraw it. Finally she moved Rey into position and put the candle in front of Rey’s feet.  
  
“Okay, in order to set him free, I need you to prick your finger over the candle and let a drop of blood fall into the flame while you say ‘come back to me,’” Leia instructed as she produced a sewing needle from a leather pouch and handed it to Rey.  
  
Rey nodded and knelt down before the candle. Kylo flickered at her, in what she imagined was an attempt to be reassuring.

_It’s okay. You’re just trying to help him. You’re just trying to do a good thing for someone. He may or may not be a real person, but he needs help. You can try to help._

Pricking her finger with the needle was the challenge. Rey didn’t want to feel pain, she just wanted life to be over and done with so she could be free of all the hurting. Still, she closed her eyes and pressed until she felt wetness on her skin. Eyes open now, she moved her hand hurriedly to the candle’s flame.  
  
“Come…Come back to me!”

-

Everything had felt like burning as soon as Rey had first lit the candle. Had Kylo not focused all his energies into her and into remembering his past, he would have begged to be put out. It hurt in a different way to see her want to leave.

Obviously she had no real obligation to stay beyond the spell to release him. He would have his mother. That might have been enough if it were any other situation.

But Kylo had promised to help. He didn’t want Rey to leave without even getting a chance to see what he could do. Especially not if she was his soulmate. He wished non-witches had a similar concept, because if there was anyone he’d ever met that needed a soulmate, it was Rey. And he desperately wished to be that person for her. He wanted to fill her world until she never felt sad or felt like dying ever again. Perhaps he wasn’t a good man, but he could do that much with this new chance at life.

He looked up at her as she knelt over him, the pain searing in both his corporeal form and somewhere deep within. Rey was trembling, her eyes closed and she brought forth the required sacrifice. The drop dangled above him and he could almost smell the iron in it.  
  
It snuffed him out, and the pain only magnified.

-

For a moment, Rey thought she had really done it.  She had killed the flame, potentially cutting off Kylo from his consciousness. Was he still in there asleep? Or had she destroyed him?

And then there were flames rushing up from the candle and enveloping her. She had the sense to scream and try to cover her face, but the burning pain never came. Instead the flames solidified into something solid and warm wrapped around her. Something very human.

 

She tilted her head up and saw a man with a stunned expression on his face gazing back down at her.  His dark hair curled down past his chin, little moles dotted his skin, and his eyes were dark and bright at the same time, wide with realization and hope.  
  
“Rey…” He breathed.  
  
“...Kylo?” She answered.  
  
And then he pulled her into a tighter embrace, squeezing the air out of her lungs, and laughing.

“I’m alive!” Kylo exclaimed. He buried his face between her neck and shoulder, and held her for the longest time as he chortled at some unheard joke.

When he finally pulled away some, he smiled even more. She realized he was older than her by the way his eyes wrinkled at the edges. “Thank you, Rey. You’ve saved me.”

Rey shook her head. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You stayed alive just to help me,” he said softly. “If you had died, I’d be a candle forever. _Thank you.”_

God, he _had_ been a candle. Now he was real and in front of her. Now he was a person again. Her eyes went wide and she reached out to touch his face. Words escaped her lips. _“Holy shit, magic is real.”_

Kylo just laughed some more. “Yeah, it is.”

Leia cleared her throat beside them. “Sorry, but I want to see my son if you don’t mind. It’s been a while.”

“Oh! Sorry, Mayor Organa. I’m so sorry,”  Rey babbled as she pulled herself away from Kylo.

 

He stood and Rey felt a shock at how tall he was. He towered over her and absolutely dwarfed his mother as he gave her a hug, literally pulling her off her feet to accommodate their different sizes. And then she realized she missed his arms around her already, and that little thought scared her to death.  
  
“Oh my dear boy,” Leia cooed. “I missed you so much.”  
  
“I missed you too. And...Dad,” he responded. “I’m…sorry.”  
  
Leia hushed him and told him to put that aside for now, which made Rey realize she was intruding on a very private moment. She turned away and started back towards the door. She’d slip out quietly and leave them behind to catch up. Yes, that was the right thing to do. She wasn’t needed in their lives anymore. She’d only muddle things up. Time to go.  
  
-

He caught sight of Rey trying to escape again. As much as he wanted to hold his mother longer, his soulmate was much more urgent.  
  
“Rey…”

She froze at the edge of the living room.  
  
“Don’t go. _Please.”_

Leia slipped herself from his grasp, understanding instantly. Ben reached Rey in two steps and he realized just how small the girl was in comparison to him. He hoped he wasn’t intimidating with his height, with what he was asking.  
  
“I-I know you mean well,” Rey stammered. “But you don’t have to repay me. Really, you don’t.”

Kylo’s heart ached and he knew he was on the verge of tears. Should he force her to stay? That wasn’t the right thing to do, but how else could he make sure she didn’t leave?  
  
“What if I just want you to be with me?”  
  
She looked up at him, so troubled and unsure. Too much for someone her age. “Why?”  
  
“Because I care about you.” The words came fast this time. “I care about what happens to you, and...I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

He stepped closer, almost crowding her space, and offered his hand for her to take. “Please stay with me.”

-

Rey did not trust the world. The world lied and was needlessly cruel when it was easy to be kind. She didn’t understand that. She didn’t think she ever would.

But then there was Kylo. He had not lied at all. Not about magic, or about his mother, or about leaving her alone. After all, he was begging her to stay and she didn’t doubt for a second that if she left he might try to track her down.

And she did want to stay. He was offering so much of what she wanted.To be wanted by someone, to be cared for. What did she stand to lose?  
  
Rey closed her eyes. Her heart could be broken, shattered into a million little pieces. But it had already been done. What would a few more pieces matter? She’d be in the same place as right now, but for a while, she wouldn’t have to be alone.

  
A hand touched her shoulder. She looked to Leia, who had joined the two of them. “I’d like you to stay too. For dinner, at least. Or however long you’d like.”  
  
She let her hand slip into Kylo’s.  
  
He kissed her for the first time as his mother dug through the fridge. First on the top of her head, then as she looked up at him in awe, on the lips. Soft and deliberately slow, like he would never stop kissing her if it wasn’t for the rest of the world.  
  
She didn’t let go of his hand until Leia called them both to the dinner table.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading "Wish Upon A Candle." The basics of the idea came to me in a dream a few nights ago, basically the candle, Kylo being a ghost, and the baseball stadium. The rest came to me when I was awake. 
> 
> Rey's emotions are loosely based on a time when I had atypical depression caused by severe underemployment. Though I never had suicidal thoughts, I did have thoughts of death frequently. I truly thought life wasn't going to get any better for me and death would actually be preferable. Things eventually turned around though, and here I am! Hopefully, I've done alright with Rey's characterization here and not offended anyone. If anyone has any suggestions re: tags I might have missed, let me know!
> 
> If you're on tumblr and you like horribly uncurated reylo blogs, I'm allaboutmanga.


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